Story:A Meal with Sidian
This short story documents the events following a Vaikan IT worker's mysterious meeting with the Gomodd prophet, Sidian. As if the meeting itself was not both fascinating and terrifying, he soon after begins to succumb to Sidian's influence. It doesn't end well. This story isn't supposed to be taken 100% seriously, and is more an experiment, though it's events are canon. Days past Grey. Grey and dull. Grey, dull and confined. As were all the workspaces in the tiny Rhodnin Technical Support facility on District 5 of Dhragah city, north-west Vrallhin, Ilion. But Leidn would have it no other way. Forty three years he had sat in his stall, taking calls, requisitions, inquiries and the occasional foul-mouthed rant by some random guy who couldn't get the newest episode of My Little Kentirlot on their AV Interface. Any person, alien or Vaikan, would probably lose their mind after so much of the same boring routine, small and enclosed cubicles and limited contact with people that didn't have some kind of technical problem or weren't slightly (for lack of a better word) insane, and D5 had plenty of them. Immigrants, drug-runners, asylum seekers and other scum would piled into the district by the hundreds. But Leidn powered through, with a good deal of success. Leidn Hendr, 1st branch executive of Rhodnin IT Corp.'s Community Support team took the chaos and displeasure any mere mortal couldn't hope to withstand in his stride. He learned to control his emotions at a very young age, but more interestingly he seemed to be able to channel it into a pale charisma that often times helped resolve violent over-the-RCI conversations and make his job a little less mindbogglingly irritating. He was married, or at least, the equivalent of married in the bizarre "District 5...-ien" sub-culture of the already moderately bizarre Vrallhin region. Ok, let's just say he had a mate he lived with and was legally and morally obligated to support her for as long as they held the contract. Of course, intercourse was fairly common, at least more common than the usual Vaikan mating periods... so yeah, this was pretty much marriage. But, of course the "emotional control culture" still ran strong and what some cultures might call "love" wasn't a necessary part of the equation. But other than that, Leidn was as close to being happy as his people could be. Good work, good pay, good sex, good life. And then ''they came''. Though he wasn't big on galactic events, this was something he couldn't afford to ignore. Gomodd. That's what they were called. "The Holy Disciples of His Most Benevolent and Wise Vernietigen, Guardian and Father to All Life in the Universe" were a force to be reckoned with, according to all sources. Two Eteno fleets wiped-out by a single cruiser, they say. Worship a dead god from over fifty thousand years a go, they say. Commanded by some extragalactic warrior of unimaginable power, they say. Leidn basically called it a load of crap and tried to get on with his life, not wanting to worry about some far off menace that will probably be stamped out by the next quarter. But the moment he heard the word Vernietigen, that is when... "the itching" started. Then he found out it was just a weird rash or whatever it is that makes Vaikan skin crawl. Although, round about that time he did get a strange bout of headaches which had no physical cause that could be determined. But he had work to do and so he tried put it out of his mind and ignored everything to do with these events. But he would grow to regret that decision. Soon enough, everyone would regret underestimating the Gomodd. He remembered the day they reached the first Vaikan colony. It was Brunikor brought to fruition as the planet was bombarded from orbit with thousands of capsules containing... things. Within about a single planetary rotation of Ilion, the colony and the entire region had gone dark. No ships, no communications, not a single sign of activity or life. The few transmission there were suggested that whatever had attacked the colony had: A) Shredded through the region's defensive fleets. B) Annihilated the backup fleets to the system. C) Torn the planetary and terrestrial defences apart all in the space of a single day. The Eteno couldn't even do that and these fanatic bastards calling themselves by a name that would probably be best for a house pet if you were trying to be intentionally cruel had only crawled out of the woodwork a few days before. The idea that this things could bring an entire region to it's knees and then take it square of the map was a terrifying, outrageous and at the same time awe-inspiring thought. What's more, the region was only a half-a-week's trip from Ilion and about a month and a half's journey from Greenwater. The colony was attacked five days after the reported outbrake in the nebula. If they did a month-and-a-half trip in five days, then what was stopping them from arriving here tomorrow, or even at this precise moment? Not wanting to loose sleep over the matter, Leidn tried to get to sleep. He didn't succeed. "Ok, maybe they won't come here" he thought to himself. "But Ilion ''is the most important colony in the local area." "''What if Krar is already gone? No, we'd've heard something about it already." When he finally fell asleep, he found that even as his body and mind shut down, he would still be haunted by the news and... some''thing'' talking to him while he slept. He would find himself in a room, sat at a table with two plates on it and a figure on the other side obscured completely in darkness except for it's two brilliant-but-also-spine-tingling cyan eyes that seemed to be piercing his mind with a lazy gaze as their owner picked up pieces of something Leidn could only identify as some sort of cooked animal, that looked as though Morduin had intentionally created it in such a way as to eternally suffer, with metallic talons as black as the void of space and draw them closer but never seemed to eat them. The first night, the being was silent. The next few it began to talk in a bizarre sort of fluctuating noise that made Eteno popular music seem bearable to listen to. The next it began to speak clearly in Leidn's native tongue but he could never remember what the apparition had said. He did however notice that he had developed a craving for frosted Tlooska eggs. Every time he woke up, he felt strangely cold and humid (It wasn't sweat if that's what your thinking, Vaikan don't have sweat glands, dumbass! Or do they? I can't remember). His mate had managed to get him to take a sample and see a doctor, but the mysterious liquid would have evaporated by the time he managed to get something to work with. He eventually decided to Brunikor with it and just kept having the dreams. One morning, he woke up in the middle of no place in particular and struggled to get to his feet, what with having a thumping headache and enough intoxicant to put an Eteno down flowing through his system. After a particularly heated discussion with the owner of the building he had woken up in, whom he apparently had agreed to intercourse with despite the fact that he couldn't tell whether or not the alien was male or female or even if it had genitals, he had been wondering around talking to himself in some weird language and started eating non-existent food every so often. He also had a note stuck to his head. A traditional, thin sheet of paper with writing on it. The penmanship was elegant and light but atrociously difficult to read unless you happened to be trained to it, as Leidn found he mysteriously was. Attached to the note was a reservation for a table for two at Lanxi's Fine Cuisine scheduled for that night, with the words 'Try to be on time. Tardiness is unbecoming.' written on them. Not knowing what direction his once simple life was leading him in now, Leidn made the decision to go along with it and go to this meeting. Krayhan knows he should've just thrown that note away... A dinner to lament That Odd Feeling A Vaikan's Nightmare Resistance Dogma Category:Articles by User:Pschycron Category:Stories